Yesterday, George mentioned a poll he saw of people who watched last Thursday's debate. The poll said that people liked the style of Kerry's delivery better, but they liked the content of Bush's message better. The thought of that frightens me.

I know that roughly half of all Americans plan to vote for Bush, but that doesn't necessarily mean they completely agree with him. They might just trust him more than Kerry, or always vote Republican no matter who's running. But if a significant percentage of Americans agree with Bush, not just one part of his agenda but all of it, we're in for a rough decade.

I firmly believe that if our nation continues along the path we're on now, we will meet with crisis. However, I also believe that crisis is inevitable. What scares me more about a Bush-caused crisis than a Kerry-caused crisis is that I don't think the people who believe in Bush will be willing to admit when he's wrong. When our country falls into financial ruin and others want to attack us rather than help us, who will get the blame? If we're not willing to blame our leaders or they're not willing to accept responsibility, the blame will be shifted to another group.

I can't predict who the scapegoats will be this time around. Gays, Democrats, non-Christians, socialists, francophiles? None of those make sense, but scapegoating rarely does. At any rate, if Bush gets re-elected, it's going to be hard being a dissenter four years from now.